071 How To Take A Break From Your Accounting Firm

Remember when you first set off on your own, the old ss, Build your own firm and you thought, this is gonna be, this will be the life, Freedom, flexibility, agency. All the things I ever wanted. Spending more time with the kids and the family. Don't have the stress of these awful managers and bosses. I'll take all this time off and all these, all these breaks. Haha. How's that working out for you? Let's talk about taking breaks. Recently I took a break from this show after 66 shows in a row. So naturally I'm the person to give advice on breaks. Right. I'll share kind of some learnings from my time running firms where I still struggle with break taking. And hopefully we'll all start working on those tan lines together. So come on in, let's take a break. Okay, so we made it 66 shows in a row. Good golly. I said in the beginning this wouldn't actually be a daily thing. But hey, I'm honestly having a lot of fun doing this. People say, how do you come up with things to talk about every day? Don't know, man. Some kind of disease, maybe. I, it's. But I just feel like there's a lot, there's generally a lot to talk about when it comes into, it comes to firm running. And I'm kind of bored with the regular like dialogue of the webinars and the conference talks. You see, they're all kind of about the same subjects. And I think the nuance is so much more interesting when it comes to firm running. And like, you go a layer past that crunchy candy core of how to lean into advisory, how to blah, blah, like all the kind of, you know, basic things that folks talk about. When you get underneath there, I think there's so much depth, there's so many things as an entrepreneur that you struggle with in terms of setting boundaries and how, how running a, running your own business can, you know, really take over your life. So there's, there's all that stuff, there's all the tactical aspects of doing accounting and tax and all that. So I actually feel like once you get past like the tropey things that everyone talks about, there's way more depth. And I love those conversations because that was the stuff that like I wanted to hear when I was running a firm was the hard things that maybe there isn't a great answer for. Feel like there's a lot of those. Okay, so I took a break after 66 shows and the fact that I did 66 shows in a row made it arbitrarily hard to take that break. And this is absolutely the case with normal work, normal people's jobs. There's this whole like, once you build yourself up to be the person that's there all the time, the more you do that, the harder it is to not be that. Because maybe there's like some element of your identity or your value to the team being staked in that. I heard from some folks when we were talking about this on social media that even when they've got their team to a spot that is pretty self sufficient, they struggle with not contributing. So even if your team, if you got this rock star team of folks and we're not all there, but even if you get to the point where you've got this Rockstar team of folks that are crushing it, that can handle pretty much everything yourself so that you can work less or take some time off, even then you struggle to be like, well, gosh, my team's so great. I want to be part of the team working just like they are and contributing. And I've totally experienced this. And I think this is a good thing to be mindful of because most folks, like, aren't there. Most folks today are not living in a spot where they got this Rockstar team and things can just happen. And for the folks who are not there, what we do is we think down this future timeline that is just, I just got to find the right person, I just got to find the right team. Give us some time, we'll get on top of this and it'll all be much more manageable. And it is worth hearing from the people who are on the other side of that, who have taken the time and who have the team, they may not be taking any more time off than you are, not for any particularly good reasons, just because they can't seem to give themselves permission to take that break. So is the issue having the team and, and you know, not actually being able to keep the machine running when you're not there, or is the issue you just now letting yourself take a break? I think, I think, I think we focus on the systems and what if our clients need us and not having the right people and all those things, we kind of fixate on that. When the reality is, I would say 80% of the equation here is simply giving yourself permission and like just doing it. And there's some hard aspects of it, but I think the fact that you have people with the teams who have all the infrastructure to take time off, yet they still can't give themselves Permission, like, I think reality is, that's kind of where we all are. So I posted on Social that I've been removed from firm running for six months and still really haven't given myself permission to take a break or to work less maybe. So those are like kind of two different things. You gotta take a break, and maybe that's just a vacation, but also work less. Derek Foote was talking about this, and it totally resonated with me. He's like, I'm gonna have a really slow summer. Like, I got a whole bunch of stuff knocked out. Not slow in a bad sense. Like, slow like need to. Need to do some biz, Dev. But slow from the standpoint of, like, things are pretty chill right now and, like, we're doing fine. But how do you then, like, give yourself permission to work less than kind of how we've been trained to work. And early this year for, like, for me, that was like, how do I not work overtime all the time? And over time, like, I still struggle with, well, if I don't have to work 40 hours this week, how do I just not do that? It's tricky. And online, a lot of the, like, the thing that always comes up, and we've even talked about it on this show before, is when you do what you enjoy and you know you'll never work a day in your life, right? And, and so, like, as if the solute, like, as if the solution there is, well, if you're enjoying yourself, what's wrong with working? And I agree with that to an extent because. And this isn't going to apply to everybody's life circumstances, but, like, I could absolutely love the work that I do and have a blast, and I generally do most of the things I do I really enjoy, but no amount of me enjoying and having fun working all day is going to get me any time back with my kids and is going to, you know, when. When they look back and we didn't spend any time together, I can't be like, well, let me tell you, there was this AI stuff going on and accounting profession. It was really exciting. So I was having a. I was having a good time working. And we've. I've. I share stuff about, like, my upbringing and generational, kind of know, like the generation of work that my parents were from and how I actually think this was my dad, who worked a ton growing up. Didn't see him all that much, but he loved what he did. And I know we're kind of ultimately this reflection of our parents, right? And when we see things that our parents get wrong. We like go extreme the other way. But he worked his butt off, but he really enjoyed what he did. But you know who doesn't care about that? Me. The kids, the family, all the folks that were all the people who were like, yeah, I get that you're trying to retire early, but like what? Like can we go to the lake? Like, can we go do something fun? So is it good to enjoy your work? Yes. Is that a free pass to go pour unlimited amounts of time into working? And this is the struggle that I have is when you work for somebody else. It's really nice to be able to put your finger on that employer and be like, man, I couldn't do that birthday party because I had to work, or I never had the freedom to pursue this hobby just because we had to work so much. But then you take that constraint off and you're your own boss. And the trappings of 40 hour weeks, 80 hour weeks, whatever it is, that all goes away. And you see how arbitrary all that stuff is. How do you craft a new reality for yourself? And even harder for me, what is the quote, unquote, right amount of time to spend working versus spending time with the family and stuff like that. Like there are no rules there. This episode is sponsored in part by by Client Hub. This week on Tales from the Hub. Let's talk about. Let's talk about partnership. Okay. Last week, super smart accounting firm they were at scaling new heights. And while they were there, they got to meet Judy and Sarah from the Client Hub team. They had a booth and let me tell you how good it was to connect, learn that there's a real team behind the tech that you use, actual squishy human beings. And you know what else? They felt that there was a real partnership there, a real bond between their firm and the folks at Client Hub. They realized Client Hub was about three things. Being great listeners, being forward thinkers, and third, being community builders. By listening, they could be genuinely interested in what the firm told them about their clients needs. By being forward thinkers, they were blown away with their vision of your firm on GPT. What? And, and all the magic features Client Hub is working on. Okay. What a tease. And finally, by being community builders, Client Hub could connect them. Who other with others who were happy Client Hub users. They had a great time at the conference, hanging with the Client Hub folks and told everybody about it. Told everybody to get on Client Hub. Cause partnership's what it's all about. At the end of the day, you know, you know Just bringing people together. That's it for this week of Tales from the Hub. Check out Client Hub at ClientHub app or the link in the show Notes. This episode is sponsored in part by the fine folks at Cloud Accountant Staffing. Do you hire accountants? Bless your little heart. Not the best part of the job in my opinion. Not something I ever enjoyed. Well, listen, you can build your accounting dream team with talented offshore accountants in the Philippines that work 100% full time for your firm. Their accountants aren't freelancing or contracting for multiple firms. They're all yours. They work exclusively for you and are incentivized to stay with you and your team long term. They're not going to get swiped. Cloud account staffing is 100% dedicated to the accounting industry and founded by a former accounting firm owner that understands your business, knows your pain points. They had to hire some accountants and they said, you know what, we're going to build our own pipeline in the Philippines, going to pull in some super talented people and then open that up to other firms. Basically that's the story. I've been talking about a lot about staffing, building more resilient staffing pipelines for your firms. I had staff in the Philippines like totally red pilled me to like oh geez, like we need to globalize the way that we get our work done. Check these folks out. Link in the show description Cloud accountantstaffing.com now these are all extremely privileged problems to have, mega privilege problems to have. But I don't know, a few things I've kind of been circling that are lessons I learned, you know, running a firm and trying to get my staff to take vacations that I should probably are rules I should probably try to apply to myself a little more. So we had to ultimately within the firm there were times where we had to force some members of the team to take vacations. Otherwise they just would have been there until the end of time. And there's a lot of reasons for that. I think some people, some folks are like more, it's easier for them to take vacations than others. Like that's just how they're wired. They would happily just sit there and work and never take vacations. There's some people who really struggle to delegate things and so they can work themselves into a point where it's quote unquote impossible for them to leave because there's such mission critical things happening. They genuinely can't see how that stuff could still get done if they weren't there. But this is ultimately damaging because you get this fixation with your current circumstances and the current way that you work, and before you know it, you've like, lost six months to this grind that is like a set of tasks that is, like, fixed. And ultimately, when it comes to the growth. Growth of anyone, especially your team within an accounting firm, growth is the evolution of the tasks that you do. And if you're. You are still doing the same tasks six months from now that you're doing today, then are you really growing? I would say no. So when we would talk, when I would meet with staff and they would talk about kind of more aspirational stuff of where they wanted to be, ultimately, we had to get really tactical about that and say, well, we. I agree, like, I want you to do these things too, but in order to enable it, we got to stop doing something. So we got to look at all the tasks on your list and say, well, these are the things that you shouldn't be doing and create a plan for how those tasks can either go away or go to someone else. And, like, the best forcing function I ever had for this was time off. Because time off has a way of just ripping off some band aids and challenging some assumptions about what needs to be done, what doesn't need to be done. I know a lot of anxiety about leaving is just, like, not even something that's, like, actual reality. A lot of the anxiety around leaving is around, well, what if something happens when I'm gone? Well, what if a client needs something overnight when I'm gone? Like, what will we do? And the only cure I found to that is just leaving. I had so many situations where this was helpful. Whether it's vacation, whether it's maternity leave, like this. There were so many things that so many times people being out accelerated change that felt really, really hard until there was this immovable thing coming up that just made it happen. And sometimes those arbitrary boundaries are like, I don't know, necessary to get over that hump. Even if you work for yourself like that, this, you know, giving your per self permission to work less and take time off, like, starts with just doing it and seeing what happens, and it's okay for stuff to go sideways sometime. Like, I learned that was one of the really hard things I struggled with as our firm grew and I got out of client work. And I transitioned from me doing things, quote, unquote, perfectly, which really just means exactly the way that I would do it to the team members doing things instead, and them delivering that stuff without any oversight from me, without me reviewing the final output. Maybe the hardest thing I learned in that process was how to begin, begin developing a mental framework for what was good enough. Because when you're the technician and you're doing all of the work yourself, because you see the quality of that work through your own personal lens, it is perfect, right? In reality, it's not perfect, but it's exactly the way that you would do it. And like, if your ambitions are to grow beyond being the technician and maybe manage a team that does this work and remove yourself from the client work more and more, one of the really hard aspects of that is like, developing that mental model for what good enough for your practice looks like. And that is good enough on the technical spectrum, but also good enough on the spectrum of how close is this to the way that I would do it? Which is not like a correct or incorrect sort of yardstick. It is somebody else's brain is going to tackle it in a completely different way to you. And, you know, a really interesting example that we see this in the wild right now is as we are working with language models, it's really shining a light on how oftentimes what we get back is not what we expected when we prompted the language model. But it doesn't necessarily mean that's wrong. Ultimately, like, language models are almost like this perfect reflection. Not perfect, but a reflection of what we put into it, what we asked for it. Because you can get very explicit in exactly what you want back in terms of the tone and the length and the nuts and bolts of it. But as we work with these things that are, that are fundamentally machines and not other humans, much of, like, whether that feels like a positive or negative experience boils down to how well the response aligned with exactly what I wanted. Whether I said all of those things or not. And I don't know about you, it's actually made me think more about how I can more explicitly set expectations clearer with fellow human beings. Like when you chuck a prompt into chat GPT and it gives you something back that you completely didn't expect and you're like, oh, well, I didn't give it like any of this framework to work with. And that was actually in my head, but I just never communicated it. When we work with humans and they don't come back with what you expect, you know, you've probably all seen people frame this as, you know, a lack of common sense or lack of experience, when in reality we're probably not giving them clear enough instructions. But getting your team to execute to there's a technical standard that has to be managed, but also to something that aligns exactly to how you would have done that thing is probably never going to happen. And that's something that we kind of have to train ourselves off of. If you run a team, if you're going to take a break and that team's going to still be able to deliver things when you're away. Hey. This episode is sponsored in part by Canopy, the practice management system. Canopy unlocks the firm that you always wanted. Think about it. Close your eyes, lean back in that chair. What is the firm that you've always wanted? Oh wait, Canopy unlocks it. And they do this by unclunking accounting firms with an end to end solution that makes your tech stack feel a little less stacky. Cause it's end to end. Putting our customers first with world class user experience, support, education and innovation rooted in customer feedback. Working and working well anywhere and for any size or type of firm, wherever you are now and wherever you're going, multiplying your efforts so your practice requires less proverbial midnight oil. You know, sidebar. If you go to the conferences, Kanopy's got like, they always do some like really good little like sorta, you know, the stuff that they use to like trick you into coming to the booth. Well, this year they've had like Legos out there. Maybe, maybe a double dinner down on the midnight oil thing, you know, maybe like, I know, give away a little, little, you know, little actual midnight oil. I guess it would need to burn too, but that one's free. I think it's a good idea delighting your clients with a modern, easy to use portal that helps you get the info you need when you need it. That is Kanopy. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more. This episode is sponsored in part by Zero. Hey, listen up. Zero Roadshow. You ever been to a Zero road show? It is like a, it's like a big family band that drives all around the country getting people to come out and hang and talk about Zero and learn stuff. It's not like an actual family band. Like there isn't a bus or a van or anything like that. I think most of them fly. But it's coming to specifically Austin, Atlanta and LA. So first up we got Austin coming July 27th. At quote unquote, the line looks like a fancy hotel. If you have ever been at a Zero event, you know those people know how to throw a party. Am I right? If you haven't, think about it. So Zero Roadshow Chance to come and hang with a bunch of folks into kind of like the progressive approach to building an accounting practice. Meet some folks that are using Xero in their firm. Six hours of CPE per event. Whoa. Learn about the latest Xero product updates and even hang with some of the Xero like community app ecosystem folks. So July 27th, check that one out in Austin, Texas. I'll put a link in the show notes to register and if you go, send me some pics. Send some pics over. Maybe post some pics in the comments. I've been to some zero roadshows before. They're a good time so a few lessons I learned about breaks in firms first, that whole attitude towards breaks starts with you. If you never take a break, it is going to be harder for your team to take a break as opposed to if you lead by being a break taker. It will make it much easier for everyone else to do that. And the biggest value of that beyond breaks to me is a greater level of shared accountability for everyone's work. Because if I want to take breaks, I want to work with people who will happily jump in and cover for me when I'm gone. And if that's something that I want, I'm going to be much more likely to reciprocate that for other people. This person hasn't taken a break for a while. How can I help to enable them getting away? What are the things that they're most worried about leaving when they're gone? Is there a way that I can help with that? If you set the tone at the top of being someone who will regularly take breaks to take care of themselves, talk about the importance of that and the importance of being able to cover for each other when they're gone. You will, from a culture standpoint, create a much safer environment for people to get away from work from time to time. 2. It is the ultimate way to Rip off the Band Aid. We talked about this a bit. Now semi leaving doesn't do this. A long weekend doesn't do this. I would even argue a week doesn't do this. I'm about to spend a month in Los Angeles with my wife and kids and that's going to be a really fun adventure for us because I don't think we've ever done anything more than a week away from home with the kids. And it is long enough that you can't just count down the days until you're back. Like it's long enough to where it feels like this is your life now, right? And you have to live in the moment, and you have to make the most of what you're doing. Because the return to the normal setup is not just around the corner. We'll see how this goes with kids. We'll see if. If this creates some permanent scars or not. But the same applies to work and our teams. You know, if you're only gone for a week, did your brain ever totally turn off a work? I would argue it turns off of work, like, at the end of the week. And then I, like, am annoyed that after a week I have to go back to work because I was just starting to get out of work mode. If I take two weeks off, usually the second week off is the good one. Second week off, I'm like, man, I don't care. Like, I'm removed enough to where my brain isn't still clinging to maybe all the things I didn't get done or the things that I know I'm gonna have to do when I get back. So leaving rips off band aids. And that's maybe an example why actually, like, maternity and paternity leaves with my team were the most successful Band Aid ripping experiences because they're gone for months. So it's like this person's gone now. And that was a great opportunity when those people came back for me to pull those folks and do oftentimes entirely different things, better things for them that probably would have taken months or years longer to get to. Like, we talked about the iteration of tasks ultimately being someone's path to growth. It may have taken a year to get all of those tasks off of that person, but the fact they're gonna be gone three months on leave meant it had to happen then. And then when they came back, we had, like, this fresh canvas from which to kind of rebuild that work if we wanted in a different way. And so those were some really good opportunities. The longer that leave is, I think the more impactful that is, rather than just people white knuckling at a few days or a week until you get back. Third, also, like, I'm trying to be mindful of solo firm owners equally relevant to solo firm owners. What if you shut your business down for a month? What would happen? That's probably really scary, but doing that, absolutely possible. I know lots of folks that do it, and going through the exercise of doing that, you know, once, like, that's really hard, but it's going to make it easier the next time. You're going to learn more about what's the right way to communicate that stuff to clients. Ahead of time when you're going to be away, is there some like low touch version of support that people can get from like a virtual assistant while you're gone or something like that? If they just need help fetching documents, something like that, you know that's going to be really hard. But the first time you do it is always the hardest time that you do it. And down the road, wouldn't it be nice for that to be something that felt feasible and not scary? That's why it's worth doing the first time. And then third big thing I learned from taking breaks in my firm, the thing that you took the break off to do, you'll probably remember like the, the more of a geezer I turn into, the more into experiences I am. The time that you're taking away, whether that's a trip, hopefully it's to do something meaningful. That's not work. You will remember that. But if you think about all the nitty gritty work details you're fixated on around that trip, of the stuff you got to do before you leave and what emails you missed when you were gone and all that stuff, you won't remember any of that. That stuff will all be gone at the end of the year. That Christmas card, that like, you know, reflection, journal, whatever. Like when you think back on the stuff that happened during the, you're going to think about the fun stuff you did on the break. You're not going to think about all the other people's problems that were being chucked at you relentlessly while you were gone, that were stressing you out. Like that stuff is totally ephemeral as compared with you taking time for yourself to go out and do that thing that you know is good for you but is really hard to get yourself to do. Like going one level deeper on breaks. What breaks are two kind of completely different types of breaks that I think we all need one. It's just a straight up vacation, like a work break. So total disconnect from all work. I would argue four day weekends are fun, but like to truly be a complete like disconnect from work, that is my mind, that's two weeks bare minimum. Because that first week you're gone, you're still thinking about work. And that's something honestly that I think we all need to do several times a year. And people just gasped. That's, that's unthinkable when you're a long ways away from that. And I get that. And to be totally honest, that feels a little unthinkable. To me right now in my own personal situation. But it's a totally arbitrary construct because it's absolutely a thing that I could do. Like, there's kind of. It's funny, one of the values of getting yourself removed from work is perspective. It's really hard to have perspective when you're in the heat of things. When you're carrying the anxieties and concerns and problems of your clients, it's really hard to zoom out and have perspective of the bigger picture and what's right for you. And that's why, you know, if you have a. If you have a partner, if you have kids, the family at home, that's why they can be such a great grounding source of kind of foundational reality for you, because they're not carrying all the stuff for you in the same way that you are. And it matters. The things that you carry do matter. And there's a ton of value in being the hero for clients and. And satisfaction to be taken from that. But when you are in the heat of that, never taking a break, it's really hard to zoom out and get perspective of, like, you know, if you were sitting down and coaching yourself. And this is the beauty of that Roast Affirm series I do on the main channel, I think. If you were coaching yourself, what would you tell yourself to do differently? Like, that's probably when our. We're in our best frame of mind. If you can kind of zoom out and be like, if I was an advisor to myself, is this what I would tell myself I should be doing? And if you're not, that's probably what you should be doing, right? That's like kind of when you're in your best, best frame of mind. So first type of break is like a total work disconnect, and the longer it is, the better. The second is just like an office break, a change of scenery. And that doesn't have to be like an actual office. That could be, you know, home, office, whatever your normal scenery is for work. There's always been a ton of value for me of getting out of that. And the way I do that usually is conferences. It's a chance to spend a few days in a different environment still thinking about work, but around different people and in a different place. So I'm not thinking, I'm not falling into the trappings of just what the routine pulls me into, because so much of what we do is routine based. You just do it without thinking of why in particular or whether that's the thing that you should be doing. Today or not. So two types of break for me. Total disconnect from work altogether, but also a change of scenery, like a break from the office, because that's ultimately where you're going to get a degree of perspective and make the better kind of strategic decisions. I don't know about you. I spent years with my head down just doing stuff, just working the machine in the kind of tunnel vision of, you know, the people and the clients in the environment that I worked in without really, like, coming up for air and thinking about the how or the why. And when I did, it was scary because it was, oh, man, that would really let down this person or this client. And so then I would just put my head back down. Um, I think we need to, like, on a very regular basis, in the same way that we talk about, like, forcing staff to take vacations, we need to force ourselves to take breaks from work and to take breaks from the office, because that you're kind of then building in a feedback loop for yourself to ensure that you're still actually doing what you should be doing, rather than just kind of being taken down river by all the stuff that comes in your email inbox every single day. Right. I think there's a very real risk of that. Also, it's my birthday today, so don't take advice from me is what we've learned today. Take breaks. I'm bad at taking breaks. So much of what I post on social and, like, in conversations like this. All right? And this is why I never want to hold myself out as a guru. They're like, all the stuff that I do wrong. Like, it is like, an internal dialogue of, like, hey, dummy, stop doing this. But also, like, to bring this full circle to, like, oh, why you should publish stuff online. Like, to me, that is sharing my journey. That is sharing the things that I'm learning every day that are useful to someone. But, boy, I hope I never want to hold myself out as the guy that, like, has it all figured out, because I'm trying to figure all this stuff out, as many of us are. And I think the more we talk about it and share what's working and not working for each other, the better we all become together. Right? Okay, that's it for today. Have a lovely weekend. I'll see you next week, toodoo.